Earlier this week GamePolitics reported on an Indiana mother's complaint that her daughter's Baby Pals game for the Nintendo DS uttered the phrase "Islam is the light."

We asked Crave Entertainment, which publishes Baby Pals, to comment on the claims, which mirror a similar controversy involving a Fisher-Price doll last autumn.

We've just received a response from Crave's Marketing Director, Doug Panter:

In creating the Nintendo DS game “Baby Pals”, the game developer Brain Toys / InXile used sounds files to simulate the life like baby noises and babbling. The sounds are publicly available for license. It is a recording of a 5 month old baby babbling non-intelligible phrases. In over 200 hours of testing the product, no recognizable English words or phrases were discernable.

The sound in question of this babble may sound like the words night, right or light, but it is only coincidence as the baby recorded was too young to pronounce these words let alone a whole grammatically correct phrase.

We at Crave Entertainment and InXile regret that there was any misinterpretation of the baby noises and in no way have intentionally put any words or phrases into the baby sounds.

We hope this eases any concerns and fans continue to enjoy playing the game.

GP: Crave's explanation that it licensed the baby talk sound file helps make sense of how "Islam is the Light" plagued the Little Mommy Cuddle and Coo doll as well. Fisher-Price probably licensed the same audio.

Comments

It is interesting to me that not a single posting has been made from the standpoint of actual linguistics. There are a lot of emotional tirades and judgmental, even hypocritical statements, but not much intelligent discussion. Regardless of what Crave Entertainment's publicity statement has been, if you listen carefully and with an unbiased, intelligent ear to the sound clip you cannot possibly agree that it is meaningless or random babbling "noises." It has the cadence and form of purposeful language.

Whether or not the content of the language is "offensive" to some, shouldn't we be asking ourselves if we want the possibility -- and I stress POSSIBILITY, because CRAVE has stated this was a "coincidence" if you choose to believe that -- of our children's toys being used as vehicles for messages we are unaware of? What if it was a sinister message that YOU would have absolutely ABHORRED your children being exposed to? For some of you, there may be NOTHING in this world that would apply; but I think for the majority of you caring, involved parents there ARE things you would choose to monitor at certain ages, and you would not consider yourselves "stupid," "paranoid," "racist", or "bigoted" for doing so. Children of all ages are like sponges; they're constantly learning, soaking up information from every experience and everything around them. To say that "it doesn't matter" or "they're too young too understand" is a cop-out!

How many of you have been embarrassed by your two-year-old mimicking something you've said or done that you didn't want exposed in public? And believe me, they can understand a lot more than they can say back to you at a VERY young age, even before they can walk! So to discount the intelligence of children by saying it doesn't matter what their toys say or do is to do them a great disservice.

We at Crave Entertainment and InXile regret that there was any misinterpretation of the baby noises and in no way have intentionally put any words or phrases into the baby sounds.

A better way to have said this would be:

We at Crave Entertainment and InXile regret that there was any idiot out there stupid enough to misinterpret baby noises in to a pro-Islam message. We obviously didn't set the "lowest common denominator" bar low enough on this, our bad...

I'm sure the attention is a big part of this story. If this were the 80's she would have magicaly heard "Black Mass is tonight" or "Ollie North is always right"... Honestly it sounds to me like it says "Trophy wife, get a life"

There was a court case in England over records being played backwards giving satanic messages. The band responsible went out and bought the first record they could lay there hands on played it backwards and found a phrase that sounded a bit like "Do you want some lemonade" they played it to the judge and it was thrown out of court.

We need more Muslim reporters on American news stations to prevent bullshit like this from getting on the air. We have black reporters, Hispanic reporters, Asian reporters, and hopefully soon Muslim female reporters, and maybe wearing a hijab so it is clear to the audience that she is Muslim.

What? That really doesn't make any sense. All we need are GOOD reporters, and someone higher up in the mamagement chain that doesn't cave to the least common denominator.

As a test, I played the babbling to my wife over and over, I asked her to try and here what it is saying. She said she thought there was something there, but she couldn't hear any distinct words. If you aren't listening for those words, you don't hear anything, and now we know that it was done by a 5 month old baby... man those DEEP undercover terrorists are the worst.

I heard it and was managed to translate "islam is the light" but that was probably due to the coverage saying "that's what it says!". When the brain expects a certain message to come out it will often plug in missing consonants and other sounds so that you hear exactly what you want. It's the brain fooling itself in this case.

So basically not only is this attention whore starving for attention, but she has ruined a perfectly good toy and video game for hundreds of other childishly and ignorantly protective parents

Honestly, why is the phrase so danged offensive in the first place? Jesus Christ crucified to a pogo stick, quit being so religiously close minded.

I remember the Penn & Teller bullshit episode on profanity in which a woman would replace god damnit with Buhda darnit, because she said "if you are going to take a diety's name in vain, it might as well be someone you don't worship". Oh yeah, it's perfectly fine to defame the name of another god and "insult" those who follow it, but when it's YOUR God, suddenly it's time to make a constitutional amendment.

I'm sorry, but even if the baby DOES say 'Islam is the light', what difference should that make? It's a meaningless phrase unless you add a lot of context that kids that age just aren't ready to internalize. Saying it's worrisome is like saying the phrase 'fixing carburettors is enjoyable' is dangerous for kids to hear. Both phrases are completely meaningless to kids unless you add some sort of in-depth explanation to them.

I actually suspect it has something to do with native accent. It seems like people from certain regions can hear it and others can not. Though it could also be the high percentage of scared paranoid bigots in those areas too.....

Well, actually it IS possible. If you stick one finger in your ear, turn up the volume on your tv, put your open ear to the speaker, and have a disabling brain condition that translates unintelligable babblings into "Islam is the light" then yes, you would hear it.

That's a bit different, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think it was the publisher's own choice to recall it before it offended anyone (and who can blame them, with all the "OMGZ IZLAMZ IZ EVIL!!!!11one" hysteria.... this is just someone crying out for attention from the media because she doesnt have anything better to do

"Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
Jack Thompson'll justify it in the end."
- nightwng2000

I'm not going to say these parents are paranoid for noticing (although they are stupid for caring about it). My friends little sister had this doll, and he asked me to listen to what it was saying. I listened, and it took me only about 3 times to determine that it was, in fact, "Islam is the light." He didn't tell me beforehand what he thought it said either, we both came to the conclusion separately. All he told me was that it said something really weird. And even if it doesn't sound like "Islam is the light," it still sounds really, really out of place. The other sounds sound like noises a baby would make, while this one sounds like inteligible speach

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Internet troll > internet paladin

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Believe in something! Even if it's wrong, believe in it!
GET OFF MY PHONE!
-Glenn Beck

SLAM BAM thank you MAMA. Now shut up about things you think you hear because you are an over paranoid parent. I dont want to see it on here or the local news again. (It is no offense to GP, just this lady who is going to call a hidden message in every little thing she hears.)

I probably wouldn't have noticed in the video if I hadn't had a biased pre-disposition for it. I was listening for "Islam is the Light" to see if I could find it, and because it's random babbling, it's what I heard. No problem on Crave or InXile's part.

It's odd how both the toys she finds, both have the exact same audio file inside them, and both times she reported it to the press, and both times they get lengthy news coverage. I'm convinced here, that theres something bigger going on, a conspiracy by the news possibly, anti-Islam paranoia, and coming from me, who absolutely hates Conspiracy Theorists, is a big statement.

I think that's very likely, surely most people would just think "Hey that sound's a but like it's saying Islam is the Light, how odd" and leave it at that, it's not like it sounds like "Death to the West"

Plus most light comes from huge infernos in the sky... approaching them is deadly...

anywho like I said in the previous thread on this:

This sound in dolls is the great terrorist invasion that Bush warned us about for 8 years... We blew up Iraq to prevent such things from happening but the election of the Irish president has withdrawn bush's protection!!! We are now all doomed...damn you liberals what have we done!!?!?!?

The other thing that's a good tip off is when they have the 'exclusive' interview. Much like that woman who changed genders and then got pregnant, it indicates you're in it for the attention, not for whatever's actually happening.

Infophile: @Matt: Apparently Dan Aykroyd actually is involved. We don't know how yet, though, but he's apparently going to be in the movie in some way.08/02/2015 - 4:17am

Mattsworkname: I still hold that not having the origonal cast invovled in any way hurts this movie, and unless the 4 actresses in the lead roles can some how measure up to the comic timing of the origonal cast, i just don't see it being a success08/02/2015 - 12:46am

Mattsworkname: Mecha: regardless of what you think of it, GB 2 was a finanical success and for it time did well with audiances ,even if it wasnt as popular as the first08/02/2015 - 12:45am

MechaTama31: I think they're better off trying to do something different, than trying to be exactly the same and having every little difference held up as a shortcoming. Uncanny valley.08/01/2015 - 11:57pm

MechaTama31: Having the original cast didn't do much for... that pink-slimed atrocity which we must never speak of.08/01/2015 - 11:56pm

Mattsworkname: Andrew: If the new ghostbusters bombs, I cant help but feel it'll be cause it removed the origonal cast and changed the formula to much08/01/2015 - 8:31pm

Andrew Eisen: Not the best look but that appears to be a PKE meter hanging from McCarthy's belt.08/01/2015 - 7:34pm

Mattsworkname: You know what game is a lot of fun? rocket league. It' s a soccer game thats actually fun to play cause your A Freaking CAR!08/01/2015 - 7:02pm

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Mattsworkname: It did, I found the idea of exploring a world at it's end, exploring the abandoned city of a disappeared alien race and the planets various knooks and crannies intriqued me.08/01/2015 - 5:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Did it appeal to you? If so, what did you find appealing?08/01/2015 - 5:43pm

Mattsworkname: Its an interesting concept, but it's not gonna appeal to everyone thats for sure,08/01/2015 - 5:40pm

Andrew Eisen: That sounds horrifically boring. Doesn't sound like an interesting use of its time dilation premise either. 08/01/2015 - 5:36pm